Dielingen Parish Baptism and Marriage records are
now available.
Like the Wehdem records, these are index files that offer basic information,
to aide your researching.
Go to the Dielingen tab to find them on the Vital
Records page.

This is a genealogy site specific to the Community
(Gemeinde) of Stemwede
in Westphalia, Germany, which is part of Kreis Minden-Lübbecke and the State
(Land) of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW
GenWeb site). Stemwede is in central
Germany, between Hannover and Osnabrück, not far from the Dümmer See. Stemwede
is relatively new name for the area, becoming a municipality in 1973 when the
villages in the parishes of Levern, Wehdem, Oppenwehe and Dielingen were
combined together. Wilhelm Niermann, a local researcher in Wehdem has prepared a
brief
timeline for the area and explanation about some of the local history that
affected house
"addresses".

This site is divided into the church parishes within Stemwede.
This site
continues to develop with help from those researching the different parishes of
Stemwede and the surrounding areas. If you have information you would like to see added to the site, please drop us a note. We will add information as we are able to do so. Please also look at our links to other sites as you find more information at those sites.

Population changes of Stemwede:
Wilhelm Niermann, of Wehdem, has prepared a brief narrative concerning the
reasons for population growth in the Stemwede area until the1840s as well as
reasons for emigration from Stemwede, which followed the growth. (auf
deutsch)

Church Parishes & their Records:Baptism, Marriage and
Death records were traditionally kept by the church until the early 1900s, when
the government became the central record keeper. The church books still reside in the
churches but are archived for safekeeping and cannot be accessed directly.
Instead, microfilm records are available in the regional church office in
Bielefeld and also in the city of Lübbecke.
If you plan to visit the area and want to look at the books, you will need to go
to Bielefeld or Lübbecke and should make arrangements in advance. Contact
information for the office in Lübbecke: Kirchenkreis Lübbecke,
Kreiskirchenamt, Geistwall 32, 32312 Lübbecke. Telephone: 05741-2700-0. These
records are the same as can be accessed in the Mormon Church Libraries in the
US.

Map Room: A
collection of maps from the area, including maps of the villages, showing the
locations of homes with the old homestead numbers, which are referenced in the
church records.

Query
Page: As a WorldGenWeb site, we now have a query page for the Stemwede area.
Now part of the Ancestry.com Message Board System. You can search across all
boards from here, too. For postings less specific to Stemwede, but still in
Nordrhein-Westfalen, visit the this query board:

The information in these resources are pertinent to the Protestant population
since they are derived from the church records. For Jewish information, you may
look at the website(s) administered by the Jewish Genealogical
Society, http://www.jewishgen.org/
, which are searchable by both surname and place name, and which give links to
researchers doing work on families and places throughout the world. Niedermehnen
(in the Levern Parish area) has a
Jewish Cemetery and prior to World War II, had a Jewish Street in town, plus a
Synagogue. However, I am not aware of any particular information to research
these items.